User:John Karanicolas

Dr. John Karanicolas is currently an assistant professor in the Center for Bioinformatics and the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas.

Dr. Karanicolas was granted a PhD from The Scripps Research Institute in 2003. He carried out his graduate studies in the laboratory of Professor Charles L. Brooks III, where he studied protein folding through analysis of molecular dynamics simulations. He has since completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Professor David Baker, at the University of Washington. Here, Dr. Karanicolas carried out theoretical and/or experimental aspects of several design projects, including altering the allosteric mechanism of integrin signal transduction and designing a peptide to inhibit tau fibril formation. His postdoctoral accomplishments culminated in his design of a de novo protein-protein interface from two proteins with no natural affinity for each other.

Dr. Karanicolas stresses his enthusiasm to apply protein design methodology as an effective means to deconstruct the complexity in a system of particular biomedical interest, cytokine signaling. Carefully designed molecules will reduce cytokine signaling to a series of single well-defined responses, allowing clear delineation of these complex pathways and leading to a new class of therapeutics.